Dilys and I were chatting yesterday about our first jobs; I was a Filing Clerk at TNT Roadfreight and Dylis started work for the Inland Revenue in Swansea.

It was whilst we were talking about this that I recalled an incident that made me cringe at the time. I must have been 18 and I’d been promoted to POD (Proof of Delivery) Clerk. Now I was still quite shy back then so I didn’t find dealing with telephone enquires all that easy. Basically an irate customer would ring up demanding to know why his parcel hadn’t been delivered. I then had to check for a signature on a delivery note. Of course, 9 times out of 10 we didn’t have the delivery note back or if we did – it wouldn’t be signed.

The next stage would be ringing the delivery depot - a vast majority of the time I would end up speaking to a male - who would then check the delivery sheets to see if it had gone out with a driver. Of course in some cases they couldn’t find it ever reaching the depot to start with. That would mean a bay search – someone would go out and physically check the depot to see if it was there but without the paperwork or any delivery labels. To be honest 9 time out of 10 the goods had been delivered – it was just proving it.

Anyway, every depot had one to two major customers that sent parcels everyday. One of our customers was a company called Duraflex. At the time they produced mainly loft ladders, PVC doors and windows. We dealt with 5/6 non deliveries everyday and it was on the trace of a loft ladder that I nearly died of embarrassment.

I’d gone through the usual procedure and had been unable to track it down so I asked to be transferred to the bays so I could ask for a search to be carried out. I can even remember which depot I rang – the Ramsbottom one.

So I got put through and asked the foreman if he could do me a bay check for a missing parcel? No problem, he said, what was I looking for? A Duraflex ladder, I replied. There was a few seconds of silence on the other end followed by what sounded like a splutter that turned into a cough. He then seemed to pull himself together and said: Really? Did the company despatch many of these? Extending, were they? He then burst out laughing.

It was at that point I noticed my manager was doubled over and was nearly wetting himself. Slowly from the neck up,I felt myself start to turn red and I hastily slammed the phone down. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me or failing that I’d have settled for a swift painless death.

You see, I haven’t actually asked him to look for a Duraflex ladder, I’d asked him to look for a Durex Ladder. I flatly refused to ring the depot back after that and my manager eventually took pity and took the enquiry off me. I was ribbed mercilessly for weeks afterwards. You grow up fast in that sort of environment.

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Whilst shopping last night I thought I’d have a quite look in the clothing department for a bra. As I’m not the greatest fan of shopping I find it really conventient that supermarkets now sell clothes. On top of that they are also fairly cheap and it means I don’t have to walk around town on a Saturday. Thumbs up all round as far as I'm concerned.

There was a good range of bras in my size – the only problem was they were all padded. Every single design. I’m a 40DD for God’s sakes, why the hell would I want a padded bra? I’ve enough padding of my own. As it is my burst appears around the corner before me.

I can only assume that they were all designed by men or jealous flat chested women because no woman with a burst my size would have thought ‘Oh, I know what will make that bra become a must have, I'll give it some padding’.

Unless of course it a European Safety Directive. All bras now must contain padding in case a woman with an ample burst turns around quickly and takes someone’s eye out.

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And today's picture is of the cat - who flatly refused to show any interest in the present I'd brought her from Poundland. I don't know why I bother.